See how the big tech companies compare on employee diversity

Last summer, Fortune gathered the employee demographic data of 14 tech companies and ranked them by gender and ethnic diversity. Now that several of these companies—and a few new ones—have released their 2015 stats, we’re revisiting and updating those rankings. We will continue to update this story as more firms release their latest demographic information.

Last year, in response to critics who accused them of being comprised almost entirely of white men, a number of the biggest players in tech published their employee demographic data for the first time. The numbers confirmed the doubters’ worst suspicions: Minorities accounted for just a tiny fraction of most of the companies’ workforces and no company could say that women made up 50% of its employees.

Now, several of these tech powerhouses have released an update, showing how their employee makeup has (or has not) changed since 2013. The results are largely disheartening: While firms may be talking a big game, most have made very little progress. That said, just having this data in the public realm is a step forward, allowing observers to see exactly where tech companies stand on diversity and to hold them accountable for improving.

In an attempt to help with that process, Fortune ran the numbers for the nine major companies that have filed their 2014 diversity stats so far, eight we looked at last year and one—Airbnb—which just released its demographics data for the first time.

First, gender diversity:

New entry Airbnb came in first, with a nearly 50/50 gender split. Intel, with just 23.8% female workers, came in last for the second consecutive year.

On average, women comprise about one-third of the workforce at the nine tech companies surveyed by Fortune. That gap widens even further as you go up the ladder: Even at top-scoring Airbnb, women hold only 29% of leadership jobs.

For the eight companies that also reported their gender breakdown last year, we looked at how much progress each firm made on increasing the size of its female workforce. While five of the eight increased their percentage of female employees, the gains were generally underwhelming.

Facebook, Microsoft and H-P all improved by less than 1%. LinkedIn had the most notable increase, going from 36.7% women in 2013 to 38.1% in 2014.

Now, on to ethnic diversity, a slightly more complicated subject. For the purposes of this ranking, Fortune compared the percentage of white employees to the rest of the workforce.

Of the companies included here, LinkedIn was also the most diverse in this category last year. (It came in at No. 2 after Apple, which has not yet updated its stats.)

As with gender diversity, the percentages of non-white employees drop even further when you zero in on company leadership. Airbnb, which scored higher than the other firms on gender diversity, drops to bottom when you look at workers’ ethnicity.

For the eight companies that reported ethnic diversity last year, Fortune took a look at year-over-year progress. In general, companies made slightly better progress on ethnic diversity than they did on increasing their percentages of female employees.

Only Cisco saw a drop in its percentage of non-white employees. Once again, LinkedIn stood out, going from 44% non-white in 2013 to nearly 49% in 2014.

Overall

To calculate how the nine tech companies fared overall, Fortune assigned points based on how they ranked in four categories: Overall gender diversity, overall ethnic diversity, gender diversity of the leadership team, and ethnic diversity of the leadership team. Companies that failed to report data for a particular category were given last-place points for that category. Here’s how they stacked up, at least by Fortune’s measure:

LinkedIn

Facebook

Cisco

eBay

Airbnb

Intel

Hewlett-Packard

Google

Microsoft

An interesting note: While there was some shuffling in the middle of the pack—Facebook and Cisco moving up the ranks, eBay and Google dropping down—the top and the bottom slots haven’t changed. LinkedIn came in at No. 1 last year, while Microsoft was in last place.

Fortune will continue to update these rankings as additional tech companies release their latest diversity stats.

This tool is helping Airbnb, Pinterest, and Etsy get more people to download their apps

What good is a user referral program or a marketing campaign if its effectiveness can’t be measured?

Like any other business, companies built on mobile apps—such as Airbnb, Pinterest, Etsy, Washio, Wanelo, and Snapdeal—want to know where their customers come from. Often it’s on the recommendation of a friend, who shared with you the link to download the app in Apple’s App Store or Google’s Play Store. The problem? That process tells the app-maker very little about how you got to that link. The app stores don’t transfer that information to the vendor—obscuring your arrival from, say, Facebook over Google Search. (Ditto sharing a link to specific information within an app, such as a home listing on Airbnb or a pinned Pinterest item.)

Several companies build tools to circumvent this loss of data: Branch Metrics, Tapstream, and a three-year-old company named Yozio, which on Tuesday said it raised $7 million in new funding.

Yozio builds software development kits, or “SDKs,” that are easy to incorporate into mobile applications and makes it so that when a user taps on a link to view an item in an app, Yozio’s servers will remember the action and, using a variety of information to identify the user’s device, will tell the app to show the user that item as soon as the download completes.

Yozio has more than 600 customers, it says, 20 times the number it had when it launched in January.

Yozio lets developers track individual links across Apple iOS, Google Android, and the Web for efforts such as customer referral programs and email marketing campaigns. On Tuesday, the startup added the ability to track links when existing users click or tap on them—a feature that many customers requested, Yozio co-founder and CEO Lei Sun tells Fortune.

“A lot of the people who were clicking were already users. So it looked like they weren’t getting more installs,” Sun says. Yozio’s corporate customers were missing the fact that their existing users were clicking on links—an equally important user behavior they wanted to be able to track.

Though tracking tools from Yozio and its peers aren’t a cure-all, they are growing in importance for developers. The rise of the app economy and in-app commerce has put a premium on such information; the ability to test how various kinds of marketing work can make a world of difference for a startup’s survival. From a transactional standpoint, reducing friction during a purchase process is the ultimate goal of every merchant that fears losing business from potential shoppers who just give up because they couldn’t find the item after downloading and signing into an expensive new shopping app.

Yozio says a big challenge ahead is working in international markets where there are a number of app stores beyond that of Apple and Google. These stores use different technologies, Sun says, and Yozio needs to make sure it can support them, too.

Cuba libre! Airbnb stays in the country are free this week

With the Cuban Embassy reopening in Washington, D.C., this week, room-sharing service Airbnb says it will cover the cost for U.S. travelers booked to stay in the country.

The Cuba refund will apply to trips booked prior to July 20 for travel between July 19 and July 26.

A trade embargo was lifted and travel to Cuba has been allowed once again after President Barack Obama enacted policy changes at the end of last year.

“In the most significant changes in our policy in more than fifty years, we will end an outdated approach that, for decades, has failed to advance our interests, and instead we will begin to normalize relations between our two countries,” the White House said at the time. “Through these changes, we intend to create more opportunities for the American and Cuban people, and begin a new chapter among the nations of the Americas.”

Nathan Blecharczyk, a co-founder and CTO of Airbnb, recently wrote for Fortune about Cuba’s economy. He said that since Airbnb started allowing listings in Cuba in April, there are over 2,000 rentals available.

“For the first time in decades, authorized U.S. travelers will have the chance to experience authentic Cuban hospitality at homes across the island,” an Airbnb blog post announced at the time. “Despite its proximity to the U.S., Cuba has been off limits to most Americans for over 50 years. Part of Cuba’s appeal to visitors is that it offers an experience unlike anything else.”

Airbnb announced its plan to pay for guests’ stays via Twitter.

To our guests who booked trips to #Cuba this week, good news: We're celebrating the embassy re-opening and your stay is on us!

Airbnb’s original corporate program launched last summer, and the company says that since then, more than 250 companies have signed up to provide accommodations through the service as an option, including Google, SoundCloud, and Twilio. On Monday, the company said it’s rolling out a full dashboard of tools that will help company managers better keep track of their employees’ bookings and billing.

Though Airbnb’s been quite successful in the leisure travel side of the business — it’s reportedly valued at more than $25 billion and on track to do $900 million in revenue this year — going after the business travel market could add another big stream of recurring revenue. Unlike individuals, companies book travel fairly frequently. Business travelers already seem to take well to these alternative services, with expense management company Certify reporting last week that ride-hailing service Uber has finally overtaken taxis as the more used form of transportation by its customers.

With that said, Airbnb will still face an uphill battle, especially with with executives or industries accustomed to putting up their employees in fancy hotels — staying in an average Joe’s home might sound very appealing to them. But as Bloomberg notes, Airbnb hopes it could become popular for extended-stay business travel or for offsite stays — think renting out a cabin for a team retreat.

Airbnb exec: Here’s what Cuba’s economy needs now

As the U.S. embassy reopens in Cuba on Monday, an American flag rises in Havana for the first time since 1961. Now that our diplomatic reconciliation with our estranged neighbor is well under way, we have another opportunity to extend our ties with Cuba. Political barriers are coming down, but to strengthen our partnership, we need to help unleash the potential of Cuban entrepreneurs.

Since Airbnb began operations in Cuba in April, over 2,000 Cubans have made their homes available to American travelers through our online apartment rental site. Cuban entrepreneurs have been sharing their homes to make extra money for decades, so we were able to build on an established network of casas particulars — a network of private homestays that have long been a choice for visitors, as well as a source of income for thousands of Cuban families.

On a recent trip to the island, I saw that the entrepreneurial spirit is everywhere in Cuba. They even have a name for it – cuentapropismo. There may not be many retail shops or billboard advertisements, but entrepreneurialism is humming just beneath the surface. In fact, over the past few decades, the Cuban government has enacted economic reforms that created more space for these entrepreneurial activities.

Today, thousands of professional dancers, painters and writers use their talents to earn income as independent artists. Havana’s first public wi-fi café is open for business, while outside vendors sell fruits and vegetables, CDs, and cell phone accessories. Independent restaurant owners, known as paladares, have even started training programs for younger Cubans who learn how to run businesses themselves.

Still, being an entrepreneur in Cuba isn’t easy. During my trip, I met Julio, who runs a small business refurbishing old cars that transport tourists around Havana – and it requires every bit of ingenuity he can muster. He can’t get the parts he needs to fix up the cars directly, so he has to go through a middleman in Miami who tacks on a 20% surcharge. He has to pay another middleman to host the server for his company’s website to get the word out to prospective American travelers. All of these constraints make it hard to start, let alone grow, a business in Cuba.

The potential is there to reap the rewards of a global economy – but the American private sector can do more to help unleash it.

During my trip, I asked Cuban entrepreneurs what they needed to flourish in this new era. They said three things:

First, they need greater Internet connectivity. Cuba is one of the world’s least wired countries, which makes it hard to access global markets or support online payments. The entrepreneurs I talked to are determined to carry on regardless of Internet access. But they all agree that it would allow them to operate on a different scale.

Second, Cuban entrepreneurs need our business. Political rapprochement will mean little to average Cubans if they can’t benefit directly from the surge of travel by Americans. When travelers book stays through Airbnb, the money goes directly to Cuban citizens. And a little extra money can go a long way in Cuba. The average Airbnb host in Cuba earns an average $150 to 250 per rental, which represents a significant supplementary income in a country where average workers earn $25 per month. In turn, Cuban entrepreneurs can use the money they make to invest in improving their homes or buying equipment for their businesses, bolstering other local businesses.

Third, American businesses should build bridges to ordinary Cubans that make it easier for them to sell their resources and skills and access new markets. Based on my conversations with entrepreneurs in Cuba, they are eager for more tools that enable anyone to become an entrepreneur in a matter of minutes – a possibility that was unimaginable here just a few months ago.

The reopening of the U.S. embassy is an exciting and important milestone, but real change will ultimately come from Cubans and Americans working together, learning from each other, and building new friendships that transcend the past, and help both nations forge a brighter future.

Nathan Blecharczyk is co-founder and chief technology officer of Airbnb.

Google capitalized on the recognition of Jenner by running a two-and-a-half minute advertisement that championed transgender individuals. The Mountain View, Calif., company first launched the video on YouTube in June to celebrate gay pride. The video received more than 1 million views on YouTube, so Google decided to air it during the ESPYs as a way to pitch itself as a trans-inclusive brand: “Not that many big brands have very publicly supported and endorsed the transgender community,” Google’s Vice President of Marketing Arjan Dijk told USA Today in an interview. “It’s a role we want to play as a brand.”

The Google ad chronicles the story of Jake Nothnagel, a 26-year-old, as he transitions from female to male. The Google tie-in is that he found a gym that supports transgender individuals in their efforts to build their new bodies.

Airbnb, the room-sharing platform, also aired a 60-minute spot during the ESPYs that’s part of its “Mankind” campaign. The “Is Mankind?” spot advocates viewing the world from alternative perspectives. “Go look through their windows so you can understand their views,” it says. “Sit at their table so you can share their tastes.” Near the end, the ad flashes “mankind,” “womankind,” “trans-kind,” “humankind.”

The transgender community has garnered new attention since the July cover of Vanity Fair featured Jenner, presenting as a woman for the first time, but plenty of challenges remain. Case in point: in all but 19 states and the District of Columbia, transgender individuals can be fire for their gender identity.

A survey of hotel managers in Spain last year revealed that there were more rooms available via Airbnb-like rentals than through traditional hotels. Residents of Barcelona have complained that cheap rentals have attracted crowds of rowdy tourists.

In addition to taxing the room rentals, the regulations passed this week will limit Airbnb-like rents to two rooms per property for—at most—four months per year. Property owners must declare their rental activity to authorities and be present during guests’ stays.

Airbnb and other sharing economy companies like Uber face intense opposition in Europe. Critics have said they are anticompetitive and are undercutting traditional businesses. European Union authorities are preparing new regulations for such services, according to the AFP.

San Francisco revamps Airbnb regulations

This article is published in partnership with Time.com. The original version can be found here.

By Katy Steinmetz @katysteinmetz

The hometown of accommodation-sharing website Airbnb has come to a tentative resolution in a long fight over how often people can rent out their houses and apartments online.

After multiple rounds of debate over 60-day, 75-day and even 120-day caps on rentals, the San Francisco Board of Supervisors voted Tuesday to keep the current 90-day cap in place when the host is not present and allow unlimited days when the host is present.

The fight is far from over, however, with one supervisor even calling the vote “somewhat moot.” Earlier this week, a measure qualified for the November ballot that would cap both hosted and unhosted rentals at 75 days per year. The initiative would also require platforms to list only hosts who have registered with the city, a tenet of the current law that has been largely ignored by local hosts. The measure has been labeled as “anti-Airbnb.”

The debate is not just a local skirmish. Airbnb has faced concerns from lawmakers in New York as well, while cities across the country have debated limitations and even bans on companies like Uber, a ride-sharing app, as local governments struggle to update long-standing regulations in light of new technology.

The new San Francisco ordinance, which passed in a 6-5 vote, will create what supporters call a “one-stop-shop” office to handle issues related to short-term rentals, whether that’s getting through the registration process or handling neighbor complaints.

While investors love Airbnb, the reaction in its own backyard has been mixed.

The city is in the midst of a housing crisis. While some locals have been evicted from their homes by landlords hoping to rent them out on Airbnb full-time, others have testified that they’ve only been able to stay in their homes because of the extra income home-sharing has afforded them. An extensive report on the issue by the San Francisco Chronicle found that more than 150 homes seemed to be rented full-time on the platform, suggesting that might be stock taken out of the strapped rental market.

During the meeting, supervisors debated when private companies should be asked to share data and when participation in new economic opportunities turns an activity like driving or sharing an apartment into a business. “I do believe that home-sharing is here to stay, and we should support appropriate and responsible home-sharing in San Francisco,” said Supervisor Mark Farrell, who sponsored the new ordinance with San Francisco Mayor Ed Lee. “But we must protect our city from turning into a city solely of short-term rentals.”

Farrell, and other city lawmakers, cautioned against deciding this issue by ballot, because after a law is put in place that way, officials must return to voters in order to make any changes to it. He said that the economy and business models are changing too rapidly to put such a high bar in place for updating related laws. “We’re in the top of the first inning here,” he said.

Exclusive: Meet Airbnb’s highest-ranking female exec ever

Belinda Johnson, Airbnb’s general counsel since 2011, is about to become more than just the company’s legal eagle. In her new role—chief business affairs and legal officer—Johnson will be one of Airbnb’s top business leaders, overseeing a sprawling domain that includes civic partnerships, public policy, communications, social and philanthropic initiatives and, of course, legal.

The first executive hired by CEO Brian Chesky, Johnson has long had a high-profile role at Airbnb. She leads the company’s efforts to work with city governments and has been at forefront of the dozens of legal issues Airbnb has faced in recent years. While the company has suffered some big loses—New York, for one, dramatically limits the circumstances under which people can legally list their apartments on Airbnb—lately, things seem to be trending its way. Johnson’s team can count San Francisco, Nashville and San Jose as wins; the cities have all passed legislation to legalize short-term rentals, with Philadelphia joining their ranks earlier this month.

In some ways, Johnson says the job is a formalized version of what she’s already been doing at Airbnb, though she points out that certain aspects, such as overseeing communications and philanthropy efforts will be new to her. Her team will also grow, going from about 90 to 130. The plan, says Johnson, is that the shift will allow her to zero in on development and implementation of strategy, freeing up Chesky to focus elsewhere.

Chesky, who recently talked to Fortuneabout his leadership strategy, agrees, saying “It’s very important that I spend my time looking over the horizon…A lot of the things I’ve been doing, maybe Belinda is a lot better at them than I am.” In a blog post expected to go up today, Chesky calls hiring Johnson “one of the best decisions we ever made.” In her new role, he says he expects her to become a “proxy for me…She’ll become more of the face and the voice of the company.”

Johnson is already Chesky’s right-hand woman. “I literally talk to her every day, multiple times a day,” says Chesky, adding that he considers her a friend—as well as a frequent brunch or dinner companion. “She’s one of the most empathetic and compassionate people I know.” Chesky says that under Johnson’s rule, the tension that often exists between the legal and business sides of a company has been virtually non-existent. “At the highest level, she figures out how to enable our business,” says Chesky.

Johnson says they established close working relationship right off the bat, recalling that, when she started, their desks were “literally two feet away from each other.” Plus, “Brian moves really quickly,” she says, so staying in constant communication is her best bet at “keeping pace with him.”

Excepting the three founders, Johnson is the company’s highest-ranking executive and its most senior woman. However, it is worth noting—as Fortune did in a March analysis—that Airbnb has no women on its board.

In 1996, after spending the early years of her career working at a string of law firms, Johnson was hired by Broadcast.com, one of the first companies to stream music over the internet. She ultimately became the startup’s general counsel and corporate secretary. Mark Cuban, who founded Broadcast.com, said via email that the company was venturing into uncharted legal waters, and “while other attorneys were afraid of what they did not understand, Belinda dove right in. She helped guide us…through that new world,” says Cuban.

When Yahoo bought Broadcast.com, Johnson became the tech giant’s deputy general counsel. She worked at Yahoo for more than a decade, fighting off a copyright infringement suit from Sony BMG, helping the company navigate issues of online privacy and working on deals like a Microsoft search agreement (which was just revised this year).

Johnson says her experience at Broadcast.com was what prompted her to reach out to Airbnb. Looking back, those early startup days popped out as “the most energizing period of my career,” she says. She was attracted to Airbnb’s mission and felt that her experience “diving in and helping clear a path” could help the company navigate the murky legal waters of the constantly evolving tech industry.

Another thing she missed about startup life: The way job descriptions are so often tossed aside in favor of doing whatever needs to be done. In her Broadcast.com days, she says she even pitched in with sales, cold calling universities in an attempt to convince them to stream live audio of their lectures. Now, by branching out well beyond her legal duties, Johnson’s new role will no doubt offer her another taste of that freedom.

“That’s what I love,” says Johnson. “To be pushed out of my comfort zone.”

7 investors who must definitely regret rejecting Airbnb

Airbnb CEO and co-founder Brian Chesky once scoured the professional world in search of learnings from the world’s greatest managers. Now he’s serving up some lessons of his own.

In a post on the social blogging platform Medium, Chesky published a series of early rejection letters he and his co-founders received from potential investors when they were first building the company that would become Airbnb. The startup is now a $20 billion “unicorn” that—as a poster child of the new sharing economy—has been fundamentally rocking and reshaping the hospitality industry.

“Not in our area of focus,” wrote one potential investor. “Don’t think it’s the right opportunity,” offered another. “It’s a long shot for our involvement,” noted a third. “I’m not going to be able to proceed,” declined the following. The final reply is no different.

“We decided yesterday not to take this to the next level,” an unnamed venture capitalist said. “For some reason, we’ve not been able to get excited about travel related businesses.” (Two firms didn’t email the Airbnb team back.)

Who knows how Chesky and his team felt upon receiving the news at the time. Probably: disappointed, dashed, deflated. Yet in hindsight, the sequence of rebuffs share an ironic, uplifting lilt: Don’t let the naysayers get you down.

“Next time you have an idea and it gets rejected,” Chesky writes, “I want you to think of these emails.”